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Casanova, the Venetian who lived most of his life in exile from his beloved city and created his own myth which in turn is a reflection of the nature of the city itself is the subject of this masterly biographical essay by Stefan Zweig. As Zweig describes in this volume: Imaginative writers rarely have a biography, and men who have biographies are only in exceptional circumstances able to write them ...Casanova is a splendid, almost unique exception. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide.
Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

Author information

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a translator and later as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and enjoying literary fame. His stories and novellas were collected in 1934. In the same year, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in bed in an apparent double suicide.

Review quote

Zweig's genius as a storyteller encompasses the brainy as well as those of average intelligence, the very rich and the desperately poor. He deserves to be famous again, and for good Times Literary Supplement The most perceptive tribute yet paid to one of the greatest of all Venetians, a quintessentially Viennesse essay in psychoanalysis, yet which also seeks to guarantee the survival of art against the sophistications of the psychoanalytic technique -- Jonathan Keates Spectator There are many new books clamouring for attention - but then Pushkin Press publishes another translation of the Viennese master, Stefan Zweig, and everything contemporary gets pushed aside -- Nicholas Lezard The Guardian Zweig is the most adult of writers; civilised, urbane, but never. aded or cynical; a realist who none the less believed in the possibility - the necessity - of empathy The Independent